"The idea of the Gulch is to walk away and start your own. Is that really necessary or is there ample foundation here to right he ship and make a go of it."
If I had to guess what will happen, I imagine people will eventually move to space or remote places on earth and come up with new ideas that shake up the world as the United Stated once did. The United States will become like England-- a nice, affluent, safe place, but not a place trying crazy new ideas that revolutionize the world. I hope I'm wrong and the US has a new renaissance of sorts.

Are you saying objectivist-consistent philosophy dipped in the mid 19th century, but came back in another form in the 20th century?

"The idea of the Gulch" evolved from what Ayn Rand created by intention. The Valley was a vacation resort, basically. Only when it became illegal to quit your job did the great business leaders need someplace to hide. They never intended the Valley to be permanent. They feared that it might take generations for the world to change, but they were happy enough that it did not. The collapse of society was not caused by Wesley Mouch, Cuffy Meigs, and Dr. Stadler. If the heroes had been willing to put up with regulations - as people had for decades and centuries - society would have continued quite well. It was the removal of the greatest minds -- Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson,... -- that was the shrug of Atlas which toppled the world.

Right now, we are in the "You'll do something, Mr. Rearden." stage of the process.

I question the apocalyptic assumption - more in line with the story line of Ghostbusters - that society is too corrupt and evil to survive. Former Reason editor Virginia Postrel wrote The Future and Its Enemies to describe the broad swath of greenies and preppers and other sundry individuals and groups who do not want to see material progress. We get a lot of that here. Personally, I am an urbanist. I appreciate CircuitGuy's point that now, even the most remote rural denizen can be connected to the greatest stores of knowledge. So, yes, we can spread out, get more elbow room. But, no, we do not need to plant our own corn, slaughter our own pigs, forge our own iron (make our own steel), spin our own optic fiber, and machine our own internal combustion engines.

Are you saying right now the gov't aligns with objectivists values?? That's inconsistent with everything we both just said.

Trying to determine when the US isn't worth keeping or attempting to recover from an Objectivist perspective. The idea of the Gulch is to walk away and start your own. Is that really necessary or is there ample foundation here to right he ship and make a go of it.

Surely, the wonder is in this day..Unfortunately, so it total surveillance and a thorough lack of respect for privacy in almost every aspect of life (allowed via electronic communications). It certainly could be right now.

You have to understand Objectivism as an Enlightenment philosophy for which metaphysics and epistemology are fundamental and prerequisite to morality, ethics, and politics. Therefore, America was generally best aligned with (note the lower case) objectivism - rational empiricism, or the scientific method - from the beginning (1776), and drifted away by stages until by 1830 to 1860, it was clear that the philosophical foundation had been eroded.

Ethically, Americans generally never have been egoists. Although personal independence and the sanctity of personhood always have been important, those were implicit assumptions, never explicitly stated in terms we would recognize as "egoist" today. That kind of thinking only evolved in the 1830s to 1860s with little-known writings by Max Stirner, and a few others.

However, the secondary issues of politics and economics were dominant from about 1830 to about 1890. The Horatio Alger stories hallmarked the zenith of that ethos in America.

But, if you look at at the aesthetics of Objectivism, you see a continuation into our time, with Romantic cinema. And then, consider especially the "sense of life" in the psychological writings of Nathaniel Branden. From 1984, we saw the arrival of "Me Generation". But that was possible only because of the human potential movement, Gestalt psychology, and other (very non-O) theories that validated personal achievement and individual success, apart from social norms, apart from families of origin, etc. So, in that sense, America is far more "Objectivist" psychologically today, than we were in 1776.

You also have to define "America." It is a truism in the academic study of American History that "the American revolution" took place in the minds of colonists from 1763 to 1775. They understood their common need for political independence from Great Britain. The Revolutionary War followed from that. But "they" only refers to one-third of the population: others were opposed to independence; still others were ambivalent. So, you have to define "America."

The "documents" (Constitution, I assume you mean) are largely irrelevant as origins or causes, and only reflect the current state of the "national mind" (if such a thing exists). "Mr. Marshall has made his decision. Now, let him enforce it." -- Andrew Jackson. The Supreme Court has little power. We can laugh at them and walk away. We adhere to their rulings because we choose to. They reflect the "national mind" (again, assuming that any such thing - statistical as it must be - actually exists.)

What do you mean by "departure"? Do you suggest that we just declare the Age of Ego... and then what?

This is a complicated, multi-part question. (Are passing out grades... or a diploma for this tripos challenge?)

I imagine the government aligning with Objectivist ideas in the late 19 century, but I may be romanticizing that period. Obviously the gov't is not objectivist, and this is a grave concern.

As for when the people have been able to best align with objectivist ideology, it could be right now. We have the ability to spread our ideas everywhere almost for free. We have the ability to sell things to almost anyone anywhere. Science has been influencing people's lives, so more people accept the idea of understanding the world rationally based on observation and experiment. We indulge in our homeopathy, but when we really need something done we turn to science. We don't have to live in a large city with a university library to get the latest scientific information. Even in rural places, we can access information from great libraries on our phones. Resolving disputes with force, formerly something that even a vice-president might do, is now thought of a low-life behavior.